ST. LOUIS—The St. Louis Battlehawks picked up Sunday where they left off during the regular season in United Football League action last year, with a league-leading attendance figure, as more than 32,000 fans watched St. Louis defeat San Antonio at The Dome At America’s Center in the team’s 2025 home opener.

It was the first time fans and the league’s television audience got to see the fruits of new turf and lighting installed in the offseason. In recent years, the turf has earned the ire of fans and others, especially when the facility hosted a Missouri-Memphis football game in 2023. The different formats for painting the yard lines and hash marks for pro vs. college football clashed.

Officials here say they’ll repaint the field ahead of each game, allowing for clearer customization in the future.

The changes caught the attention of UFL vice president Daryl Johnston, the longtime Dallas Cowboy fullback turned FOX NFL broadcaster who has made plenty of trips to the venue over the years and saw it again Sunday.

“It’s an honor for a facility like this to have the confidence in what we’re doing and committing those funds into the experience for not only our players but also for the fans,” Johnston said.

The league has not announced which city will host the UFL title game, which was played here last June. St. Louis has been the envy of spring football since the Battlehawks’ 2020 XFL debut and the return in 2023, with a rabid fanbase that has set multiple attendance records. In a perfect world, the league could find a way to replicate what’s worked in St. Louis elsewhere, but the reality is that St. Louis manages to regularly outdraw the rest of the league’s combined attendance.

The other factor is hoping that the host city’s team qualifies for the title game. It didn’t happen in 2023 when it was held in San Antonio, or last season, when the Battlehawks lost in the playoffs.

“We would love to be able to spread the wealth but it’s going to be challenging…It’s an earned right….we hope to be able to come to a decision soon. We’ve talked about what it meant here for the city of St. Louis, but also how important it is to have that team in that game,” he said.

“Is there an opportunity potentially for Birmingham to host a championship game because with three consecutive championships, they’ve earned that right as a team. Does that translate as the fanbase earning that right the way St. Louis has?”

The last weekend of the UFL regular season is May 31 through June 1. If it maintains the previous scheduling format, conference championship games would be played the following weekend, with the title matchup coming the next weekend of June 13-15.

The America’s Center complex is scheduled to host Meeting Professionals International’s World Education Congress from Jun 18-20.